Losing facebook

If 2012 taught young companies anything, it was — courtesy of Facebook: how not to conduct an IPO.

After a strong start, new offerings lagged in the second half as the social media giant's mismanaged debut in May made entrepreneurs think twice about going public. It's also the reason why unsung firms that bring solid returns are capturing Wall Street's attention heading into 2013.

The Facebook fiasco, which was supposed to usher in a new era for tech issues, cast a long shadow over Silicon Valley. The year started off promising with seven Internet IPOs pricing in the first quarter alone, but after Facebook there were just five more Internet deals for the year.

Upstarts raised $43 billion this year — the highest total since pre-recession 2007 — but the figure was skewed by Facebook's $16 billion haul. Without it, the average tech deal size shrank by 62 percent to $224 million.

Making matters worse, Groupon and Zynga, which went public in late 2011, suffered big declines this year. Both are down 75 percent, with investors unimpressed by their performance.

Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo, a research firm, is now looking at "less sexier names" for hot IPOs. TableauSoftware, one of the biggest data companies, is on everyone's hoped-for list after its peers were among the top performers this year.

"It's all about B-to-B enterprise and cloud-computing software companies," he said.

Fellow enterprise software companies Guidewire and Workday are up 140 percent and 80 percent, respectively, since going public.

"These companies did better because the business model of Internet can be volatile and revenue difficult to predict," said Stephanie Chang, a researcher with Renaissance Capital. "Software companies have contracts four or five years out and a lot more revenue visibility."

That helps explain why Facebook, which launched at $38 a pop, is now trading at $25.91. It went public at a time when ad growth was slowing and investors questioned whether it would be able to transition its desktop service to mobile devices.

Companies that have announced IPO plans include Auto Trader, Intelsat and GFI Software. Among the other firms that could surprise with a public push are SpaceX, Elon Musk's space shipping company, and AppSense.

Still, it's inevitable that Twitter, Facebook's social media rival, will draw a lion's share of attention.

The popular microblogging service could achieve for IPOs what Facebook failed to do: restore faith in the process for millions of everyday investors.

To do that, Twitter just has to take Facebook's IPO playbook and throw it out the window, said PrivCo's Hamadeh.

"Twitter will try to take every lesson from what Facebook did, every mistake, and try to do the opposite," he said.

An offering may not be ripe until 2014, but it is expected to lay the groundwork this year, Hamadeh expects.

"Twitter is just starting to introduce monetization," said Hamadeh. "It needs three to four quarters to show that it's working."

gsloane@nypost.com

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Losing facebook

Dengan url

http://bahayaprostat.blogspot.com/2012/12/losing-facebook.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Losing facebook

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Losing facebook

sebagai sumbernya